I have not often had occasion to praise President Bush over the course of his second term in office. Of late, I have only found myself increasingly entrenched in opposition to him, and locked in debate with his defenders, some earnest and honorable, others brassbound and full of sophistry. I extend to him my praise [...]
Archive for the ‘War’ Category
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The Siege of Famagusta, 1571.
December 30th, 2010 
admin Crowds of journalists have of late flocked to Cyprus, that storied island nation, and as it happens Cyprus was in the news on this very date — exactly 435 years ago, at the Siege of Famagusta. Cyprus can lay claim to being the first country on earth governed by a Christian sovereign, the Roman proconsul [...]
Thoughts on war.
December 30th, 2010 admin Pale Ebenezer thought it wrong to fight But roaring Bill who killed him Thought it right. — Hilaire Belloc What have the last four and a half years taught Conservatives about war? One thing is that a treacherous and spectacular attack against her will make a republic more warlike. This rather platitudinous statement is nonetheless [...]
Africa submissive.
December 29th, 2010 admin I am privileged to have visited Africa three times: twice in late 2003, when on a mission for the HHS Secretary, and once on a junket with Ashley Judd in 2005. The latter was everything a junket should be: pointless, wasteful, and gratifying for the ego of the attendant celebrity. The former two were genuine [...]
The defect of right-Liberalism.
December 29th, 2010 admin There is in that school of thought from which President Bush has drawn his principle of foreign policy a peculiarly debilitating problem that merits our attention. It is superficially a problem of priority, but at base it is a blunder of the intellect. It will be asked that I name the school of thought in [...]
The new cross burners.
December 29th, 2010 admin Make no mistake: Islam has no monopoly on blasphemous sensitivities. And it was inevitable that some of the aggrieved Muslims in the Danish cartoon case would seek vengeance in kind — by assaulting the revered symbols of other faiths. Lo, thus here and here, we see the emergent phenomenon of Muslims wielding crosses with, shall [...]
Politics and the Myth of a Pre-Social Human Nature
December 29th, 2010 admin The present moment is one beset by seemingly interminable and intractable (as indeed they must be, given the presuppositions of the warring parties) disputes concerning the relevance of human nature to political, even geopolitical, questions. That may seem, to some, a prima facie absurd and portentious declaration, but there it is. Its truth is manifest [...]
The wages of Christian division.
December 29th, 2010 admin Islam has, throughout the history of its aggression against the West, benefited immensely by, and in many cases cunningly exploited the divisions within the West. Some of the first Byzantine provinces to fall after the Mohammedan Revolution were those, like Egypt and North Africa, whose internal repose had already been shattered by the conflagrations of [...]
The face of the enemy.
December 29th, 2010 admin More amazing than the existence of the cartoon protests themselves — when has barbarism not lurked within and without our civilization? — is the fact that the dead so far have been mostly Muslim. Indeed, outside of the Catholic priest slaughtered in Turkey some days ago, there has been no organized vengeance pogrom against non-Muslims [...]
What to do (a beginning).
December 29th, 2010 admin The Cartoon Jihad has provoked some valuable discussion, but we are still very far from where we need to be. We are still very far from the kind of discussion that a free republican people, jealous of its liberty, must undertake. We are still very far from satisfactorily discharging our duty of self-government. The Boston [...]
